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CFD Analysis of Fuel Atomization, Secondary Droplet Breakup and Spray Dispersion in
the Premix Duct of a LPP Combustor
Abstract
The two phase flow in the premix duct of a LPP combustor is computed using a Lagrangian droplet tracking method.
To reproduce the characteristic spray structure of an air-assisted pressure-swirl atomizer, a sheet spray model is de-
rived from measured sheet parameters and combined with an advanced concept for modeling secondary atomization
effects. The sheet spray model is used for the discretization of the initial sheet fragmentation, whereas modeling of
droplet deformation and breakup during trajectory integration accounts for air-blast effects on size distribution and
dispersion of the spray. Droplet drag increase due to subcritical deformation is approximated by a semi-empirical
correlation. Breakup modeling addresses the three distinct mechanisms bag, multimode and shear breakup which are
typically encountered in fuel-air mixing processes of combustion engines. The models include mechanism-dependent
deformation and breakup times, correlations for drag increase as well as size and velocity distribution functions of
droplet fragments. Results of the simulation are compared to Phase Doppler measurements of the spray providing
local distributions of droplet sizes, velocities and size-dependent liquid volume flux.
atomization [7] and air-blast atomization [10], intake Figure 3: Droplet impact and splashing on wall [14]
manifold injection featuring secondary atomization due
to high relative velocities [9], spray-wall interaction [9] scale which has to be taken into account by advanced
and wall film flow. Although Computational Fluid Dy- physical models.
namics (CFD) has established a position as an effective With respect to droplet deformation and breakup by
analysis tool for many engineering flow applications, two aerodynamic forces, several modeling approaches have
phase flows in combustors still represent one of the most been proposed for the use in spray simulations. Focus-
challenging objectives for numerical simulation. ing on direct injection engines, one concept is based on a
Corresponding author. Email: Roland.Schmehl@its.uni-karlsruhe.de simplified internal flow model of the droplet describing
droplet deformation in terms of a single shape parameter
determined by numerical integration along the trajectory
[4], [6], [2]. Although a coupled differential description
of droplet transport and deformation incorporates some
fundamental advantages, in particular for an inhomoge-
neous flow field, the presumed ellipsoidal deformation
restricts these breakup models to the shear mechanism at
high relative velocities. The approach discussed in this
paper covers the complete range of gas-droplet relative
flow conditions encountered in combustor flows. It is Figure 4: Premix duct in the combustor test rig
based on a set of experimental correlations for breakup
classification, time scales, drag increase and fragment
sizes and velocities [11], [3], [16], [14]. reduce droplet sizes by intense aerodynamic interaction
The spray simulations presented in this paper are bas- between fuel and gas flow.
ed on the computer code Ladrop, which has been devel- In addition to Phase Doppler measurements at 5 axial
oped at the Institut fr Thermische Strmungsmaschi- positions (see Fig. 18) the spray structure in the nozzle
nen [22], [1] [5], [18]. Ladrop is based on a Lagrangian near zone is analyzed by two visualization techniques.
tracking method and incorporates a selection of advanced The flashlight shadowgraph shown in Fig. 5(a) illumi-
modeling approaches for high turbulence combustor flows
at elevated pressures. Included are three different ap-
proaches for modeling turbulent spray dispersion [13]
and models for multicomponent droplet evaporation [20],
[12], spray-wall interaction [15] and droplet deforma-
tion and breakup from Refs. [21], [11], [3], [16], [14].
The computational features of the Fortran95 computer
code include stochastic sampling of droplet initial condi-
tions according to user specified distribution functions, a
database for variable thermo-physical properties of typi-
Figure 5: (a) Shadowgraph, (b) Light sheet
cal fuel components and a highly parallelized algorithm
for particle tracking in body-fitted multidomain grids.
nates a side view of the spray under atmospheric condi-
As a continuation of an earlier computational study
tions without the outer coaxial air flow using water as a
on spray-wall interaction and wall film flow [18], this
fuel substitute. The internal spray structure is revealed
paper is focusing on the effects of primary atomization,
by the laser light sheet photograph shown in Fig. 5(b)
droplet breakup and the influence on spray dispersion in
taken at real operating conditions of the combustor. The
combustor flows. A discussion of the basic Lagrangian
visualizations indicate a coarse structure of the spray in
tracking method, turbulent spray dispersion, multicom-
the outer spray region and a very fine distribution inside
ponent droplet evaporation and coupled solution of the
the spray cone. Fig. 5(a) further suggests that the conical
two phase flow field is given in Refs. [17], [12] and
sheet disintegrates along the first 1 to 2 mm. Breakup
[13].
of liquid fragments is then continued by aerodynamic in-
teraction with the highly energetic gas flow which pene-
Experimental spray analysis
trates the spray cone and drags the fine droplet fragments
To investigate fuel-air mixing isolated from simulta-
into the axis region.
neous combustion, the two phase flow field in the pre-
All results reported in this paper refer to the charac-
mix duct of a Lean Premix Prevaporize (LPP) combus-
teristic sheet parameters and the operating conditions of
tor is computed and compared to detailed spray data of a
the premix duct listed in Table 1
parallel experimental study [7], [8], [9]. Fig. 4 shows
a section of the test rig including, from left to right,
Gas Flow (Air) Fuel (Diesel) Liquid Sheet
the pressure-swirl atomizer enclosed by two coaxial air
ducts, the cylindrical premix duct (l =124 mm, di =44.6 mg 213 g/s mf 6 g/s vs 30 m/s
mm), the flame holder and part of the reaction zone. Tg 753 K Tf 350 K s 40
The inner air duct is focused directly on the conical fuel pg 4 bar hs 100m
sheet generated by the pressure-swirl atomizer. The fun-
damental idea of this concept is a combination of pres- Table 1: Parameters at the duct inlet (z = 0)
sure atomization and air-blast atomization in order to
0.02
Diameters
0.01
enters the computational domain has to be represented
by individual droplets. In the sheet spray model out-
lined in Fig. 6, only the initial fragmentation of the liq- 0
0 50 100 150 200
uid sheet is taken into account for the specification of D0 [m]
droplet initial data at the nozzle. Consequently, droplet Droplet Droplet
class 1
000 air
111
class 10
000
111
0.1 0.1
Clipped Gaussian
000
111 s
Injection angles
111
000
0.08 0.08
= 40 o = 40 o
000
111
P() [1]
P() [1]
0.06
= 30 o 0.06
= 5 o
000
111
000
111 0.04 45
o
0.04
00000000000
11111111111
00000000000
11111111111 0.02 0.02 o
00
11
45
00 h
11
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
00
11
00
11
s
[] []
00
11
00 air
11
v s
0.1
Gaussian
Initial velocities
0.08
v = 30 m/s
P(v0) [1]
Figure 6: Sheet spray model 0.06
v = 5 m/s
0.04
velocities are sampled from distributions based on the 0.02
geometric and kinematic parameters s and vs , whereas 0
0 30 60
the mean fragment size is estimated from the mean sheet v0 [m/s]
thickness hs . Further breakup of liquid fragments by the
air blast from the inner coaxial duct is taken into account Figure 7: Discretization of droplet initial conditions
by modeling secondary breakup during the numerical in-
tegration of the trajectories. In this way, the mist of fine
droplets visualized in outer regions of the spray can be The critical Weber number Wec defines the onset
reproduced by secondary atomization of large droplets of bag breakup, which is illustrated in Fig. 2 by vi-
which are able to penetrate the massively contracting air sualizations of a water droplet at We=10. The mech-
blast. A similar computational approach was applied for anism is characterized by the formation of a bag-like
the simulation of a hollow cone spray used in direct in- fluid film which expands from a toroidal rim. For higher
jection engines [2]. Weber numbers, a fluid column remains in the center
In the present spray computation, good agreement of an umbrella-like film structure. Denoted as multi-
with measured spray data is achieved when droplet ini- mode breakup, this mechanism is illustrated in Fig. 8
tial conditions are stochastically sampled according to for We=20. Further increase of the gas velocity leads to
the distribution functions given in Fig. 7. Droplet sizes
are sampled in 10 classes discretizing a Rosin-Rammler
volume distribution centered about the mean sheet thick-
ness hs . To reproduce the fine spray in the center region
of the duct, the variance of the injection angle is Figure 8: Multimode breakup [14]
increased for the smaller size classes.
a transitional breakup regime followed by shear breakup
Deformation and breakup regimes where a liquid film is stripped off the rim of a disc shaped
Deformation and breakup of a liquid droplet by aero- droplet. This mechanism is illustrated by the sequence
dynamic forces can be classified by two dimensionless given in Fig. 9 for We=70.
numbers
g u2rel D d
We = and On = . (1)
d d D d
Exposing a droplet to a gas flow of increasing veloc-
ity, significant deformation starts at Weber numbers of Figure 9: Shear breakup [14]
unity [3]. Above a certain value the deformation leads to
droplet breakup. Depending on the intensity of the aero- The breakup regimes derived from various experi-
dynamic forces, three distinct mechanisms are observed. mental studies are summarized in Fig. 10 together with
50 by various complex flow phenomena. Evaluating a large
Shear
Breakup number of experimental data, the following correlation
40 for the total breakup time tb is given in Ref. [11]
Transition
30 We = 32(1+1.5 On1.4) tb 6 (We 12)0.25 12 < We < 18
Multimode = 2.45 (We 12)0.25 18 < We < 45 (6)
We
Breakup t
14.1 (We 12)0.25 45 < We < 351
20 1.5
Bag We = 20(1+1.2 On )
Breakup and for larger Ohnesorge numbers
10 Wec = 12(1+1.077 On1.6)
Deformation tb
= 4.5 (1 + 1.2 On0.74 ) , On > 1 (7)
-3 -2 -1 0 1
t
10 10 10 10 10
On Aerodynamic droplet drag
Figure 10: Breakup regimes (: Present simulation) Due to the excessive shape distortion, the disintegrat-
ing droplet generally experiences a substantial accelera-
tion and displacement in the gas flow. For the initial de-
the transition functions used in the present spray simu- formation phase a linear increase of the droplet diameter
lation. To account for viscosity effects , observed for up to a maximum value has been reported,
On > 0.1, a corrected Weber number is used in these re-
lations which were reported for the low Ohnesorge num- Dmax = D0 (1 + 0.19 We), (8)
ber range only,
We suggesting that the aerodynamic drag coefficient changes
Wecorr = . (2) linearly from the sphere to the disc shape value [3].
1 + 1.077 On1.6
Considering the second phase of bag and multimode
Subcritical droplet deformation breakup, the bag and umbrella-like fluid structures ex-
Droplet deformation by aerodynamic forces is a com- pand to seven times (bag) and six times (multimode) the
plex flow phenomenon. Depending on the local flow original droplet diameter [14]. However, the drag coeffi-
field around the droplet, the inhomogeneous pressure dis- cient is not further increased in the computational model
tribution on the surface leads to shape deformations which since most of the cross sectional area of these fluid struc-
can have a significant influence on the aerodynamic drag. tures consists of a thin fluid film with a low resistance
Based on a linearized theory, the following correlation to the gas flow. For the shear breakup mechanism, the
is used to approximate aerodynamic deformation effects droplet size is linearly reduced down to the maximum
on the drag coefficient in the subcritical Weber number stable diameter Dc at local flow conditions, keeping the
range [21], constant drag coefficient of the disc shape.
urel g 0.2
Water
it is suggested in Ref. [3] that the duration of this initial Glycerol 42%
Glycerol 63%
phase is constant, 0.1
n-Heptane
ti Ethyl Alcohol
= 1.6. (5) 0.2
1.5 On Wecorr
-0.25
t
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Depending on the intensity of the aerodynamic forces, On0.2Wecorr-0.25
the second phase of breakup is characterized by further Figure 11: Improved correlation for D32 (Data from [3])
distortion of the droplet leading to its final destruction
inal experimental data as illustrated in Fig. 11 leads to Secondary droplet velocities
the following improved correlation As a first order approximation, fragments from droplet
breakup inherit the velocity of the parent droplet. Since
D32
= 1.5 On0.2 We0.25
corr . (9) tiny fragments are immediately dragged with the gas flow,
D0 only larger fragments require a careful specification of
In contrast to the mean droplet size, the size distri- initial velocities. With respect to the video sequences
bution varies substantially for the different mechanisms shown in Figs. 2, 8 and 9, large fragments are identified
of breakup. Considering the bag and multimode mech- to be the core droplet after shear breakup, fragments of
anisms, the volume distribution of the droplet fragments the center column observed in multimode breakup and
can be described by a root normal distribution [19] given fragments of the toroidal rim expanding in bag breakup.
by the following density function Especially the expansion motion of rim fragments trans-
( verse to the gas flow can increase spray dispersion sub-
2 )
x 1 x stantially. According to Fig. 13, the transverse velocity
f (D) = exp , (10)
2 2 D 2
10
We=10
with parameters We=15
8 We=20
r
D
x= = 1, = 0.238
D r,max/D 0
, (11) 6
D0.5
4
D r,max
The distribution includes fine droplets from bursting film
structures and larger fragments of the toroidal rim. Mass
2 D r,max
median diameter and Sauter mean diameter of root nor-
mal distributions are related by 0
0 0.5 1 1.5
D0.5 t/tb
= 1.2 (12)
D32 Figure 13: Rim expansion (Water droplet, from [14])
Shear breakup is characterized by continuous film
component is approximated by the mean velocity of rim
stripping leaving a larger core droplet at the end of the
expansion,
breakup process. The bimodal size distribution is re-
Dr,max D0
flected by the cumulative droplet volume illustrated in vt = . (13)
Fig. 12. It is obvious that the missing 20% correspond 2(tb ti )
100
Considering bag breakup, all secondary droplets inherit
D32,red = 54DD32 Dc this velocity component, whereas in multimode breakup,
Cumulative Volume %
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Gas Phase, Calculation
Droplets, Experiment
Droplets, Calculation
100 0.4
z=20 mm z=20 mm
0.3
Vol Flux
ud [m/s]
80
0.2
60 0.1
40 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
100 0.4
z=55 mm z=55 mm
0.3
Vol Flux
ud [m/s]
80
0.2
60
0.1
40 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
100 0.4
z=90 mm z=90 mm
0.3
Vol Flux
ud [m/s]
80
0.2
60
0.1
40 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
r [mm] r [mm]
Figure 14: Mean axial droplet velocities Figure 15: Normalized volume flux
100
z=20 mm
75
D 32 [m]
50 let
rop
ld
25 ca
h eri
Sp Breakup
0
0 5 10 15 20 Formation of Bag
100
z=55 mm Beginning Deformation
75
D 32 [m]
25
0
0 5 10 15 20
100
z=90 mm
75
D 32 [m]
50
25
0
0 5 10 15 20
r [mm]